Lignocellulosic material can be used to produce biofuels (e.g., bioethanol) and biochemicals, and thus is an alternative to fossil fuels. For efficient biofuel production from lignocellulosic materials, the cellulose and/or hemicellulose components of lignocellulosic material need to be converted to monosaccharides (i.e., monosugars) that are capable of being fermented into ethanol or butanol. Prior work in this area has proposed processes for the production of fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic material that involve a chemical and/or physical pretreatment to disrupt the natural structure of the lignocellulosic material, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose and hemicellulose components into monosugars. The monosugars can then be fermented to produce biofuels including ethanol or butanol, and/or other fermentation products such as organic acids and/or other alcohols. However, these processes currently have not been commercialized due to the high cost, low efficiency, adverse reaction conditions, and other issues associated with the pretreatment process. In addition, these processes are not environmentally friendly and in order to achieve effective and efficient hydrolysis, a large addition of enzymes is required, which further increases costs.
The present invention addresses previous shortcomings in the art by providing pretreatment solutions for lignocellulosic material and methods for pretreating lignocellulosic material that can be used to produce fermentable sugars.